View full sizeJohn Kuntz, The Plain DealerIf given half the snaps in the NFL's August sham games, Colt McCoy might win a competition with Brandon Weeden for the starting QB job. But that's not the point anymore, says Bill Livingston.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- "Colt McCoy, backup quarterback" is a prophecy often made, and often something that he has proven false.

McCoy started in high school, while playing for his father. He started at Texas after a red-shirt season because Vince Young left early for the NFL.

McCoy wasn't Young, not even close. But Young wasn't so hot in the NFL after winning Rookie of the Year honors. The "sophomore jinx" occurred because other teams adjusted to his style and also because he wasn't the best athlete on the field by a lot anymore. Scheme recognition and decision-making became much more important than at Texas, where coach Mack Brown memorably told Young, "Just play."

Intangibles such as leadership ability, huddle presence and serving as chief counselor at Camp Colt can be bigger at quarterback than any other position. But tangible assets -- arm strength and accuracy, height to see over pass rushers, bulk to withstand hits -- became serious problems for McCoy. They are why he was not drafted earlier, and why he is now expendable.

Asked about McCoy willingly accepting a backup role because of Weeden, team president Mike Holmgren said, "I would think that could be a difficult situation except if it is ever going to work, it will work ... because Colt McCoy is a special young man."

The real world is an emotional one, however. It would be human nature for McCoy to go all Seneca Wallace on the issue. Wallace, often spotted as far from McCoy as it was humanly possible to stand on the sideline, felt he was better than McCoy, but never got the chance to disprove the backup label. It would be an ironic twist were McCoy to harbor the same feelings about Weeden.

For his part, McCoy didn't like it last season when the ongoing Peyton Hillis controversies and the diva running back's attempts to defuse them encroached on McCoy's own interview time. It was a small thing, but possibly significant.

In turn, the Browns didn't like it when McCoy's father ripped the team for its handling of Colt the night he suffered a concussion against Pittsburgh. It has probably not escaped the front office's notice that, two years before that, the elder McCoy was with his son in the locker room during the BCS Championship Game after Colt was injured and unable to continue. A Little League father is a complication. McCoy is nowhere near good enough for family distractions to be issues.

"Right now, we have four quarterbacks on the roster and they are going to compete for the position," Holmgren said. "I think we have high expectations for [Weeden], but is he being handed anything? No. We're not going to give anybody [the starting job], and we told him that."

It will not be a free and open competition in training camp, though. Fans should realize by now that exhibition season is a reliable indicator of very little. If given half the snaps in the August sham games, McCoy might win the competition. He has been in the Browns' offense a year longer than Weeden. McCoy looked far better last year against passive defenses in the games that didn't count than against aggressive ones in those that did.

He is also a big fan favorite. The unjust aspects of McCoy's demotion, in terms of the low caliber of talent that surrounded him, and the lockout's effect on his tutelage, followed by his having little real chance to win the starter's job now, will only increase the sense of martyrdom.

Also, Weeden will turn 29 in October. He needs all the reps he can get. As for the backup job, Wallace was just that in Seattle for Holmgren, and he is a longtime favorite of the team president.

This is not the first time someone has told Colt McCoy he's not good enough. But my bet is he's not going to be around in August to try to disprove it here.

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